Red Water droplets
by scribbles-in-the-margins
Summary: [MABU] A seris of random one shots that don't fit into Water Runs Red mostly happening before the events of that.
1. Pain and Running

_This fits into the continuity of my water run's red story._

_Rating T for safety_

_Disclaimer - If I owned Naruto, 'Shino Laughs' would have NEVER been made._

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**Pain and Running**

Iruka shuddered and tried to get deeper into his hiding spot. Something was terribly wrong. He was in more pain than he could remember being in before. There was a loud banging from somewhere, sounding like some sort of earth jutsu coming for him. When a ray of light hit him, he felt like he was going to vomit as his head constricted impossibly tight around his brain. Everything hurt and felt heavy and there was an odd taste in his mouth. Someone's leg was under him. And someone else's arm was over him.

Suddenly there was a crash and a much too loud and much too happy sounding voice echoed through his skull, "Good morning sleeping heads!"

A girl moaned and male voices of pain could be heard as Iruka tried to find a way to crawl under the futon he was on. Carefully opening one eye, he saw the tall imposing figure of a Konoha nin standing in the doorway to their apartment. He was wearing his standard jônin uniform and seemed wide-awake. His face had its normal bandages on it and his hair was messy under his forehead protector, but that was normal. The man was much too happy for whatever unholy hour of the morning it was.

Iruka, being the normal spokesman of his genin team managed to mumble something that was barely more than a vague stringing together of consonants.

The man laughed, "UP up up up! It's a beautiful morning and you guys are going to be running around the village!" The man was obviously trying to be loud as he started to pick up the genin from the tangle of beer bottles and blankets. "You too Anko, your sensei wants you punished too!" The man was definitely too cheerful about this.

Twenty minutes later, four horribly hung over Genin were attempting to stand without leaning on the village wall. Izumo failed and curled into a fetal position with his hands over his head.

The man yelled, "Up up up everyone! If you four think you were getting away with that stunt last night without paying for it today, you were sadly mistaken."

Iruka looked up at the guard tower; his eyes squinted to mere slits. The guards were laughing at them. He squared his shoulders and turned to the other three, "Izumo, get up. Kotetsu, Anko." The sheer determination of his tone got the other three to stand up.

It had to be around seven in the morning. Their sensei had taken them from the Hokage's office at around three the night before and had been unusually nice about things. Iruka was kicking himself for not realizing what the man had been pulling. They had been stupid and happily accepted the sake and beer and whatever other alcoholic liquids the man had with him. Bastard had been planning this.

Keeping the moaning and whimpering to a minimum the four withstood the running around the village. Iruka hissed to his comrades, "He wants to make us look beat in front of everyone."

Six hours later when the genin refused to look any worse for wear than was absolutely unavoidable, their sensei called them to a halt. "Have you learned your lesson?"

Kotetsu smirked, "Yes, sensei."

The man walked over to Kotetsu and smiled, "Good, and what was that lesson?"

Kotetsu smirked, "Invite ANBU, they don't like being left out."

The man's smile crumbled. "Run! Now!"

They scrambled back into a run, Izumo slapping Kotetsu's arm, "Why the hell did you say that!"

Anko was laughing, "Good thing he didn't ask me!"

"Anko you are hopeless!" Iruka tried to catch up with her.

Their jônin-sensei shook his head from on top of the guard tower. "What did I do to deserve this?"

The man next to him laughed, "How much did they drink?"

"Enough to down most jônin."

"They seem relatively all right."

"They aren't, they are normally bickering much more."

The men watched as Anko started running backwards to stick her tongue out at the boys. Iruka put on a burst of speed to try to catch her. Izumo grabbed at Iruka's arm and Kotetsu tried to get Anko to turn back around and run faster.

The man nodded, "Maybe their abilities are genetic."

The jônin-sensei huffed, "Great, Konoha land of the most alcohol immune ninja."

The man smiled, "I'll have a mission for you guys tomorrow. I want to see how they do on covert work. All four of them. Orochimaru is going to be gone for about another two weeks so Anko is yours until then as well."

The jônin-sensei shook his head, "Sure thing," without another word, he teleported down to where his students had ended up in a tangle of limbs after falling down a hill. All four were laughing. Their good mood was almost contagious and he found himself smiling.

He looked down at the tangle of teenagers. "OK guys. Go get some rest; we leave on a mission early tomorrow. What you were supposed to learn was NOT to do anything that causes your asses to be dragged to the Hokage's office at 2AM by ANBU. Got it?"

The four nodded and stumbled back to the boy's apartment to fall back into a tangle of limbs try and sleep off the pounding headaches making walking near impossible.

------------- Notes ------------

I dind't want to put the 'timeline' thing at the front of this cause then you lose the tought of something really bad going on :) this takes place a few hours after the events of 'that one night'


	2. Terminal Infection

_Rating - Gish or adorable :)_

_warning - sickingly sweet_

_Disclaimer - Although I own a dead plant, I do not own Naruto_

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**Terminal Infection**

Umino Kumi was pouring tea for her guest, "Tsunade-sensei, thank you for your help."

The older woman smiled, "Of course, Kumi-san. I can't stand when those old bastards try to screw over a kunoichi for some stupid technicality." She took a sip of her tea, "Honestly, I can't believe they tried to claim that you didn't have enough field experience to test for jônin level."

Kumi smiled, brushing a few stray dark brown locks back behind her ears. "They do have a point that I do not have ten A rank or higher missions."

Tsunade smirked, "Of course, but you have over four years in the field on S class missions and another three on A class."

"Well I guess they don't think of missions that last multiple years." She sighed, "Not that I can go on anything that long term any more."

Tsunade nodded, "I doubt your family would appreciate you being sent off for such long missions."

Kumi nodded, "However, if war breaks out there might not be a choice."

Tsunade sipped her tea, "True, but until then at least you can enjoy them. Where are they anyways?"

"Takuya is running a team of genin through some testing in preparation for the chuunin exams and Iruka was over at the Kamizuki residence for Izumo-kun's birthday. He should be home soon."

"Hard to believe that little one is already four." Tsunade looked out the window, "It seems like all of you were just graduating the academy not long ago. I must be getting old."

As Kumi was about to protest saying that she wasn't old, there was a knock on the door and the sound of muffled crying could be heard. Kumi quickly stood, "Please excuse me for a moment, Tsunade-sensei." She quickly opened the door to reveal one of the older Kamizuki children, a cousin of Izumo if she was recalling right, holding a crying Iruka. "Kamizuki-san, is he all right?"

Tsunade had gotten up as she heard the child crying, "Is he injured?"

The young man sighed, "I have no idea why he's crying. He isn't hurt." He held the child out like Iruka was some sort of dirty contagious thing. Granted, he was covered in tears and snot, but Kumi quickly gathered him up and started shushing the little four-year-old boy.

Finally, with both women gathered around him the little boy stopped crying enough to become partially coherent. Kumi used the sleeve of her uniform to clean some of the tears off his face. A little round face with baby fat still under the horizontal scar across his nose looked up at his mother, "I don't want to die!"

Kumi started to reassure him that he wasn't going to die and Tsunade calmly asked, "Iruka-kun, what makes you say that?"

His chocolate brown eyes quivering as he looked into the blue eyes of the sennin, "I have girl germs."

Both women froze for a second as jaws tightened, trying not to laugh. Finally, Kumi brushed her fingers through Iruka's brown hair, "How did you get girl germs?"

Iruka sniffed and lowered his voice to a quiet whisper, "Anko kissed me." The look on his face conveyed the seriousness of the grievous act.

Tsunade looked at the little boy, "It's OK, some day you might actually want her to kiss you."

Kumi gave her a look that basically said 'I can't believe you said that'. Iruka for his part gasped, "Ewwww! She's yucky! She plays with dolls and makes us drink tea and she is always telling us what to do and she is mean and yucky!" After a second's thought, he added, "AND she's a GIRL!"

Tsunade smiled, "Well I'm one of the best doctors in this village and I don't think you're going to die from girl germs."

Kumi nodded, "I agree, how about I make your favorite lunch?"

The catastrophe of the girl germs evidently forgotten, he ran off to the kitchen in preparation for lunch and Kumi stood up, "Tsunade-sensei. You're right. I shouldn't worry about if there is going to be a war, I should just enjoy them for now."

With a nod and a hug Tsunade left leaving Kumi to make lunch for the girl germ infected little boy.


End file.
